For Tri-City High School senior Dalton Murphy, traveling to Honduras has become an ordinary thing.

Dalton took his fifth week-long trip to the Central American country on Feb. 23, staying at a hotel in the city of El Progreso and volunteering as a missionary during his stay.

“It’s nice to go and help people. I really like to do (missionary work) and that’s what I want to do in life is be a missionary,” he said.

Each time Dalton has visited Honduras, he has gone with his father, Jim, who has taken 15 to 20 trips to Honduras. Dalton said he decided to go with him because “it sounded cool.” Eight people took the trip this year, including Dalton’s stepmother Sandra, stepsister Avery Hortberg, and adults from community churches.

The mission trips themselves are non-denominational and Dalton has been to Honduras with people from St. Louis, Indiana and Texas.

To fund these mission trips, Real Life Church (where Dalton attends) in Springfield accepts donations and people taking the trips receive help from sponsors. Dalton’s family also helps pay.

In addition to spreading his religious faith, Dalton spent a day building seven pilas, which work like sinks and serve as a place to store fresh water. He went to town and bought 2,400 pounds of rice and beans to distribute. He also helped paint the interior of a house.

The teen spends a lot of his time in Honduras at orphanages.

During his recent trip, he visited a girls orphanage called Little Roses, which also serves as a school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

On past trips, Dalton has done a lot of work to establish and help orphanages. He helped build one orphanage that provides a home for about 100 kids.

“What (we) are trying to do is build these orphanages, spread the word of God and raise these children to be better citizens,” Dalton said.

Dalton’s been able to travel outside of Honduras’ major cities, including El Progreso and San Pedro Sula, to visit remote villages.

The trips have given Dalton a chance to see how people in other countries live in comparison to those in the United States.

“(The culture is) really different, people around here take everything for granted and we have fresh water and we take that for granted. But down there we actually paid to have a well put in ... and that was a big deal,” he said.

Dalton also noticed that many Hondurans are very religious and put their faith before anything else.

His missionary work helped him decide he wants to start traveling the world. He plans to take a trip to Africa.

Ultimately, Dalton wants to do missionary work as a career. He plans to attend Lincoln Land Community College and then pursue a career in the nursing field so he can use those skills in his mission work.